


Withheld

by millyditty



Series: Reflection [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Fallout, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Reichenbach, getting into abuse issues now, it's like christmas, nobody knows what's going on, non-canon compliant mary morstan, sorry boys, too many issues to tag, written pre-S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:31:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millyditty/pseuds/millyditty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing much happens at all. Because most everything has already happened, and no one's been aware of it, it's really becoming a bit of a problem but god forbid anyone call anyone else on it. (Or: John doesn't know what he's doing, Sherlock's letting him take the lead anyway, Sally has her own opinion, somebody killed Ronald Adair -- and nobody really knows much of anything about Mary. Possibly least of all Mary.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withheld

Withheld  
John/Sherlock, assorted  
Canon through S2, only a few aspects from S3  
Notes: Here be serious issues dealing with mental illness, familial abuse and gender dynamics. Written by a nonBrit and not Britpicked, so if it's too awful move along. Author staying incognito for reasons of her own. Many many thanks to C (link to the lovely boy later) for some info that'll be used in later parts.

_Summary: Some people have opinions. There's a body somewhere in the background._

 

 

 

 

* * *

Sally says, quick and a little high-pitched: “They _fucked_.”

Greg opens his mouth, manages a helpless “uh” and not much else.

The sudden mental disarray has little to do with the corpse lying some yard and a half away, and more to do with Donovan's mingled expression of confusion and excitement. And relief, a little relief. And anger. Yes, a bit of anger— no, much more than a bit.

Greg needs a cigarette, needs one all the time now, and Lestrade swallows it down— the way he swallows almost everything down now. First the suicide, then the demotion, then the harsh and bitter revelations. Then a new promotion, and a grief he hadn't fully expected, and then confusion watching Sally and Sherlock's doctor become— whatever it is they are.

And now stress, stress all the time now whenever the two consultants come to a scene, and everything feels the same as it always had and upside-down and inside-out at the same time.

Because she greets “freak” the way she always had but “John” in a way that Greg had thought would go away as soon as everything went back to normal.

So Greg says, “excuse me?” and waits.

Sally's got her gaze fixed on the door that leads out into the victim's ridiculously large front yard, eyes narrowed and mouth pinched tight, flex of her shoulders under her blazer a promise that she's holding herself back from— from something. “Them,” she replies, jerk of her chin an order to follow her sight, and though he doesn't have to (only an idiot could possibly not know the pair she's talking about) Greg glances anyway.

Considers.

Finally says, “They look the way they always do— _What_?” he snaps off her disbelieving face, the way she twists her face at him like he is that much of an idiot.

“They've shagged,” she states, and then says, “or as good as.”

His mouth opens, closes; his fingers twitch, once, for a smoke. “ _What_?”

She dismisses the question, strides forward before he can stop her to step over the body and out of the house and right into the pair's personal space. “It's been ten minutes, can you tell us anything or not?” she demands. On cue Sherlock casts her an imperious little glance and dismisses her, but then grabs John by the elbow and swings him away so possessively that for a moment Greg is worried the doctor's going to tip right over.

But he doesn't, he only rights himself smoothly— and touches Sherlock's tight grip on his arm lightly, the contact at once more controlled and more gentle than anything Greg's seen in months— years, it's been years, first an absence and then a loss for them all.

Sally shoots a _yeah, yeah, see?_ twitch of an eyebrow at Greg but he shakes his head, tries to ignore all of it because there's a dead man inside and he thinks it must be simple and he doesn't even know why he'd called Sherlock but he had because there's something niggling at Greg, something nudging at the back of his brain even though _there's nothing here_.

“Okay, look, is anything wrong or not?” he demands, and Sherlock glances at him, weighs him—

And then disregards him with a jerk of his mouth, a blur of a dark shadow ducking past Greg and back into the depths of the house— dragging John almost violently with him. Greg spins to follow, relieved that there's about to be a monologue and great gesturing and all of the old theatrics and it's the closest to normal as anything feels these days.

So he blinks in genuine surprise (the same but _different_ ) when the door slams behind the two and he finds himself shut out of his own crime scene.

If it even is a crime scene, no, that's not right, the man's a victim of a homicide, that's obvious— _murder victim_ — but between the gambling and the family connections, it could just as easily be a simple case of bad enemies or maybe worse friends.

“It's finally happened,” Sally states firmly behind him, and Greg flicks a silent order for her to please _shut the hell up for two seconds about that shit_ over his shoulder and jabs a gloved finger at the door bell once, twice, a third time with what he hopes comes across as the correct amount of righteous anger at the entire situation.

He's just hit a fourth time when the door jerks open and Sherlock grabs him, yanks him in and bluntly snaps, “not you” at Sally and it's lacking so severely in his usual flair for words that Greg thinks _oh Christ, she's right, they're fucking_. Greg catches one last image of Sally with her hands on her hips and her eyebrows lifted mockingly— _oh please, what a child_ — and then she's gone, locked as completely out of the crime scene as he himself had just been.

“Completely unprofessional,” John advises (voice tight and tired and oddly— mild, yes, mild, and he's become so _protective_ of Sally now, so that's all wrong that he's choosing to dismiss Sherlock's little tantrums when he hasn't for the last few months) but the consultant just grunts, refuses to look at the doctor, begins to circle the body as if everything is normal.

They look— like Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, they do.

But they don't.

The glances they keep exchanging are all different from the old ones, new and strange and heavy, and it reminds Greg of moments with his ex-wife when he'd believed so strongly they were both trying, they _must_ be trying. John's carrying himself like a man trying to maneuver through a minefield he also doesn't seem to be trying to escape, and Sherlock keeps lifting his head as if to check that he's there, gaze flicking up fast and lowering slowly.

But there's an important man's son here, a son widely known for being a sometimes good and sometimes awful gambler, and Greg needs to know if he's a little wrong or very wrong.

“His playing partner had already left,” Sherlock informs him as he points at the body with the toe of his shoe, looks angry, nervous, a little pale— and the frown on John's face is not one that Greg's ever seen before. “You found the two glasses in the sink but he's not the one who killed him; Adair had already seen that individual out when he was killed. There are cards on the table but they were still in the box. He's played with whoever his partner was enough for him not to worry about them being in his house, the wine's still sitting on the kitchen counter but he was done drinking—” A pause, eyes flicking up, locking onto John, and dropping a long moment later. “Kept it out because they haven't seen each other in some time, he was nostalgic, maybe they have a romantic history— no, no, it's a crush, the guest has no romantic interest in him, but you can still smell Adair's cologne, see the product in his hair. Three of the shirts in his closet have been hurriedly replaced on their hangers, a pair of trousers were left folded over a chair.”

“No sign of fluids,” Greg starts to say and Sherlock pauses, stares at him.

There's a muffled sound from close by, John hurriedly smothering his helpless amusement while trying his best to give Sherlock a _play nice, please_ look.

Sally's right, she has to be right, that's the only explanation for the unspoken conversation going on right under Greg's nose, the quick facial expressions they exchange before Sherlock breaks off, studies the window behind John unhappily before forcing his eyes down.

“You've had no luck finding physical evidence, of course.” Of course. “Not that any of your team could have, his guest was no amateur criminal.” Off Greg's questioning frown— “The other was here for hours but you've found no prints— he came for innocent reasons, yes, but the guest is a professional, far outside the street criminals that Adair's clubs been linked to. Adair uses the dishwasher— there's still a batch in there unwashed, one plate with shrimp, another with chicken, as well as two small ones with smears of jam dried on, so at least two days since it ran a cycle— but the glasses were hand-washed, the guest cleaned up after themselves before they left. Only Adair's prints on the wine and the table but no prints on the cards, because these aren't the cards they played with, the guest plays with his own set and keeps it with him— it's something he enjoys to an extent that he knows it's a weakness, a habit learned during childhood and strengthened during his time in the military— yes, the guest was military as well as the killer, you're right about that— but he only cleaned up the minimal amount needed for what amounts to a meeting between old acquaintances. Partly because he's so good that he doesn't leave much of a trail anyway and partly because he had no reason to be worried anything would happen during or after the visit.”

Greg starts to say—

But Sherlock cuts him off, flaps a hand to quiet him. “Adair is an acceptable gambler but the guest far surpasses his skill, and they both knew and neither cared. The guest is smarter than Adair, not easily stressed, never ruffled emotionally, much older than Adair if he began killing in the military but he might be younger, that's—”

A blessed break into silence, finally, as Sherlock tilts his head around and stares down into Ronald Adair's wide eyes, tilts his head the the other way and glares.

“I can't infer his age.”

“Adair was—”

Sherlock opens his mouth, draws in a sharp breath to say something fantastically insulting (there's an odd little thrill building in Greg's chest, a dangerous one, because the world feels closer to how it should than it has in too long, and if this comes from sex, great, fantastic, he'll lock them up together if that's what it takes to draw the two men back from the awful private island they've hidden themselves away on since Sherlock's return) and John says behind them, “The guest, Sherlock, yes, now what about the killer.”

“His gender is also a mystery.” When Greg blinks, when John shifts oddly, Sherlock makes an obvious attempt to keep the harsher words at bay (yes, Sally is right, must be).

“The killer.”

“The guest,” Sherlock corrects.

“You're the one that keeps saying he,” Greg offers but Sherlock shakes his head, stepping carefully around the bloodstain and once again studying Adair as if there's a chance the dead man will sit up and start talking if he just glares enough.

“Everything that I've found makes it clear that the guest was male, older, no family. Adair dressed older than he was for this meeting, clear romantic interest on his part, an attempt to impress, but he was obviously heterosexual— easy enough to discern from the contacts on his professional phone as well as the contacts that he would only have on his personal phone—”

Then: “ _What_?” Sherlock looks up, startled by the tone. “His personal phone?”

“The one the guest stole,” Sherlock assures as if it's a fact listed in the folder that Greg had presented to them nearly an hour before only to have Sherlock wave it off and John take it with an apologetic crease of a smile (just like always, back to Normal).

“The one he stole?”

“Yes, the second time—”

“The second time—”

“John, the echo is becoming a distraction—”

John makes a noise and Sherlock shuts his mouth and jolts away and he's so obviously trying not to sulk (so obviously trying to be on his best behavior) that Greg decides right then to completely ignore whatever the hell it is going on with them because it's a thousand times more enthralling than the case and that's not good.

Despite Sherlock's label as a sleuth hero in the last year, Greg's reaped too few of the benefits.

“There's no sign of any criminal activity on the phone,” Sherlock says abruptly, shoulders a little stiff under his coat and pointedly not looking at John. “No drunken texts, no late night calls, certainly no plans being exchanged for a meeting last night— not to mention that the phone you found was left beside his bed upstairs. The man belonged to nine online social networks but only a handful of those applications are on that phone. His laptop is barely used, dust on the top, noticeable enough that I didn't even have to examine it; had a job but no interest in it, all work was done at the office. Not to mention the charger still plugged into the wall beside his favorite couch two meters from where you're standing—”

Lestrade glances, catches sight of it half-hidden behind said couch— and also catches the almost-hidden spark of delight in John's eyes.

“Adair would never give it up willingly, despite whatever illusions he had for them.”

“The killer took it then.”

“The killer never came into the house,” Sherlock argues and John mutters something like, “yes, _finally_ ” but doesn't sound too irritated. “You can't find a more opposite set than this one— by definition a soldier, yes, but there's few signs of it beyond the weapon used and the experience in the shot. Someone forced his hand in the beginning, it's not a vocation— not like the guest, killing is the closest thing the guest has to a passion.” Pause, consider, blink at the door still closing them away from the outside world. “This man is not a gifted criminal— it's there in the shot, two shots not one, one to the head and a second to the heart— ridiculous killing pattern for a professional. Nervous. It's why he came to the doorway, why he knocked— he could have made the shot, he is trained, but he knows he might have missed. Emotional, insecure.”

Sherlock nods to the door, twitches his shoulders. “If it had been the guest, we wouldn't know it, the man's far too experienced. No, the killer knocks, Adair barely finishes opening the door before it's over. After your killer reaches out to push Adair's leg in so that he can slam the door closed behind him— gloves, he came with intent— and takes off back down the street. He's an emotional man, very much so, full of feeling. He doesn't possess much of a moral code, though he likes to pretend— little sense to it, however.”

“So when did the guest come back?”

“Early this morning, and he had a key— no sign of forced entry, no sign of a picked lock— he came because someone sent him this time. Alerted of the murder after the fact.”

“Maybe a third person.”

“Only took the phone, so it's a safe bet it's someone who could be in danger if it had been found on his person upon his death. If it isn't the guest, it's somebody working on his behalf— and something on the phone was dangerous enough to come back for even though the other signs of the guest haven't been destroyed. They know the phone's the only danger so it's all they came for, it only took a moment, the guest had nothing to do with the murder.”

“So two criminals.”

“But only one murderer,” Sherlock agrees, and he's still staring down at the corpse, still trying to shift something in his head until it makes sense, and he lifts his eyes once, glances over John quick and uneasy, and drops his gaze like he's helpless not to.

“What?”

“Nothing,” the man snaps with more emotion that he should even be capable of displaying, “it's nothing,” as if _angry_ that they're at a _crime scene_ — “John and I will be going.”

John says, “but” and Greg blurts, “no wait—” but Sherlock slips past him to pluck the folder out of John's hands and flick it at Greg's chest, to grab John's arm and yank him to the door.

“Lestrade can handle the rest, there's nothing else,” he's telling John dismissively, shoving past the startled Sally and the remaining officers keeping watch outside. “Nothing to do with us,” Lestrade hears before Sherlock's voice fades across the distance and they turn down the sidewalk, Sherlock herding the doctor as far away from the crime scene as possible.

It's wrong, all wrong, but still righter than it should be and Greg opens his mouth, closes it, looks down finally to meet Sally's gaze squarely. “That,” he begins, and then can't finish, and she nods and looks relieved and newly worried all at once, and he ends with, “right.”

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

Mary and Sally meet like a match.

John introduces them the first time, and it's all proper and the way it should be, but then Sally eyes Mary like she's sure that Mary's a fox trying to slip into a hen house and he reiterates, “my _girlfriend_ ” (because they've decided that's what they are, or at least close enough) and Sally's look is full to the brim with _each one is worse than the last, John._

Mary smiles brightly, the curve of her lips entirely too sweet, and John exhales harshly and stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares at the wall between the two women.

“He said you're a teacher,” Sally says then, and Mary nods and still smiles, and doesn't seem bothered at all by the way Sally's eyes sweep over her face, shoulders, torso. “Bit late to be out on a school night,” and she looks at John like he's absolutely nuts.

No, like she _thinks_ he's nuts, and he isn't, and so she's wrong.

“I only teach the little ones,” Mary disagrees as she folds her wool hat into her coat pocket and then peels off her coat, passes it to John— and keeps smiling at Sally like she already is sure that Sally and her will be great friends, surely. “I can be a little bit bad, you know.”

Sally, two beers into their night out (little texts filled with capslock and accusations of his lateness are now filling his message inbox) but still clear-eyed, throws him a sharp glance and then seems to be unhappy with whatever she finds on his face. “Great!” she trills, and with the sleeves of her shirt rolled up and the glass in one hand, it's the farthest image John could imagine from Mary beside him, Mary with her knitting and love of cooking. “Great, great,” Sally's getting a bit desperate now, clearly unhappy that he had sprung Mary on her with no warning and now throwing him a glance that even he can't figure out. “What do you like then,” she prods Mary when he stares back in confusion, “I'll grab it for you.”

Mary, warm beside him and sounding very like herself and very not, “I'd actually prefer wine, if possible,” and John starts a little, jerks his head to sweep his eyes over her face.

His friend Sally, his now-constant frustration of a companion Sally, sucks in a breath so quick even he almost misses it, lifts her glass to Mary like a salute. “Right then,” and a glance at John, a stare that says _I don't like her, what's wrong with her?_ and she turns and cuts through the crowd, and leaves them behind for a moment.

John says, “ah” and then says, “she's a—”

“Surprised she hasn't been promoted yet,” Mary states beside him, and leads them after Sally easily without needing to touch him to do it. “Good judge of character.”

(He doesn't like to be touched, hadn't as a child and had learned to like it as an adult, and had come to crave it for eighteen months, and now... loathed it again. And sex isn't touch, not really, and Clara can hug him whenever she wants to, but that's about it now.)

“She declined it,” he says shortly, and Mary says nothing for a moment, lets the unspoken fade after his short words before continuing with her own. “And she's not— right— all the time,” he finishes lamely because it's true, because at least one time, one awful time she'd been wrong and that time is the weight that eats at her now and no one knows but him.

Because of course Sally, of course Sergeant Donovan, of course only her experience would have given Lestrade pause, _of course_ , everything now feels like of course.

All a game, and he'd won, and they're all lost, why even be upset, why even wake up shaking and wet-faced in the night the way he still does if he doesn't work himself to exhaustion?

“She already thinks I'm a liar,” Mary states as they search for a table and sounds impressed— and he blurts, harsh and too quick, desperation jackknifing through him, “stop it.”

Mary pauses in the midst of taking her seat, intelligent eyes lifting, gaze training on him.

It's an unnerving experience despite the months that he's known her, Mary's awareness sharply predatory in a way that— _his_ had never been, but he stands his ground, says without words _leave it_ as if he has any ability to influence her— but she does, albeit with a quirk of a smile that promises she thinks he's young and adorable and refreshingly naive despite him having a few years on her.

He's fine with it (he has to be, has nothing else to fill the gap).

And they enjoy themselves as much as possible— which is to say the entire night is filled with pleasant conversation and bright smiles and peals of laughter before they separate with an unspoken agreement that the entire ordeal had been _awful_ — and he doesn't let the three of them try to have another night out, not after Sally spits out over coffee a good three weeks later “she's a _liar_ , John, do you not get that?” and he doesn't quite grasp how she can see the truth about everybody except him but at this point, what is his life, really.

Because it's fine.

It's all— fine.

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

John wakes, once, to a steady muffled thumping.

Eyes fluttering open, he finds himself settled on the stairs where he remembers finally falling asleep, arms now empty, body surprisingly warm. The dressing gown draped over him is an answer to the second but still he stares down at himself bemusedly, quite confused, increasingly worried, seconds ticking into minutes, brain only half-aware—

No Sherlock, Sherlock's gone, but his dressing gown is here, and John blinks, mumbles something in an attempt to gain some reassurance, but can't force himself to move.

The thumping stops— he mumbles again, startled by the absence—

A hand touches his shoulder, fingers slip-sliding almost warily over the crater of scar tissue despite it hidden beneath so many layers. A puff of breath into his nape, Sherlock kneeling behind him to murmur, “Go back to sleep” like a suggestion instead of an order.

So John breathes, “okay” feeling quiet and happy and content despite the fact that Sherlock is drawing back from him, moving back up the stairs.

The thumping starts again, the same steady beat, and John does go back to sleep.

He dreams of a figure falling upwards, of the world folding itself away, of time skipping back, hooking into itself and fitting back smoothly into what had been— and is content.

 

 

John wakes a second time, fully this time, head jerking up from the wall, eyes snapping open— and Sherlock is staring back at him with a shuttered gaze and a flat expression. “Wha'sit?” John mumbles helplessly, and Sherlock looks completely out of place in just his pajamas, his robe misplaced, frozen in the midst of fixing the wallpaper near the doorway.

“Go back to sleep.” The tone is curiously even, but the set of his shoulders wary.

“My back,” John insists uselessly and oh, yes, oh it all hurts.

A beat.

Sherlock says, “Perhaps it wasn't the best place for you to sleep” and steps down off the little stool he's standing on, pads over— barefoot, shouldn't be barefoot, “wood all over the floor” John feels the urge to remind him, fretful and unhappy at the splinter danger.

“It's still nighttime,” Sherlock informs him and John can only groan painfully when the taller man braces himself, starts to lever John up and off of the steps.

Sherlock makes a mild sound, rotates him carefully on his weakened legs until John can begin what feels like a nightmare of a trek, one heavy foot following the other. Fabric in his fingers, he doesn't know what it is but he's gripping it tight, keeps it close to himself as Sherlock maneuvers him surprisingly well up the stairs. “I'll help you clean up.”

“I decided—” Pause, consider. “I can— do some of it myself.”

A promise of guilt, and it's new but not really, he'd just... always let it be, always let Sherlock have his illusions and been too afraid, too skittish, to let them waver publicly.

John is turned then but stops abruptly, caught and held by the image before him.

He says, “oh” after a long time and can feel Sherlock shifting uncomfortably, tensely.

“It's a nice sheet,” he notes at last, and pokes it experimentally, watches it ripple in the dim light of their flat. “Nice and dark, is that burgundy—”

“It will have to do in the interim.”

Certainly it won't be coming down any time soon, not the way it's been so carefully placed with a half-dozen nails and, oh look, there's even a little hook on one side, and a quick tie cut from what John suspects had once been a pillowcase stitched on.

"You can sew?"

"I can do most things if I try." Words too careful, too focused.

“You won't be able to knock.”

“That's no problem,” Sherlock retorts (his voice suddenly deep and familiar and even and wonderfully arrogant in a way that it hasn't been in so very long) and reaches past John to rap once, sharply, on the wall beside the hook. “I considered switching my own door for yours but I had no way of getting it up the stairs without disturbing you so I'll do that in the morning—”

“I like this better,” John says, and Sherlock is quiet, surprised. “No, I do, it's— nice.”

“It's a sheet.”

“A _nice_ sheet,” John defends, and does hope that Sherlock understands he isn't getting his robe back tonight because he's not, it's warm, it smells like sleep, it's soft.

Sherlock says, in a slightly wondering tone, “oh” and propels him gently forward, easing him down onto the side of John's bed. John is half-afraid he's about to be stripped, to be exposed, but Sherlock just bends down to yank his shoes off, peel his socks free. When Sherlock grips his shoulders, begins to angle him down onto the mattress, he groans helplessly, the staircase making itself known from his crown to his toes.

The robe is shifted minutely, tucked over his shoulders and chest, and then the duvet is flipped over John, smoothed obsessively until Sherlock makes a sound of victory.

His door's gone.

Sherlock's in his room.

It's all very— dangerous, inside dangerous, not outside dangerous.

Only one has ever been a real threat to him.

He tries to say, “oh this is much better” but what comes out sounds more like a whimpering little rumble of happiness. He feels Sherlock shift above him, tries to open his eyes (when had he closed them?) but finds that he can't, too comfortable where he is.

So he sighs, squirms beneath the robe and the cover, and half-hopes—

A thumb brushes his forehead, a glorious moment of contact, and then Sherlock's gone.

And John's alone, and finds it aches more than it should, but he _wants_ to be alone, the awfulness still twists inside him, cannot be sated by common sense or forgiveness, he cannot let go of it, it'll happen again if he does, he's learned it so many times, the rise and the fall—

Then it's gone, turns and drops away, and John sleeps.

Sherlock will be waiting.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Sally messages, fearless and blunt and wonderfully honest

_the hell was that?_

only a few minutes after they've left the crime scene.

John thinks for the hundredth time that this must be what it feels like to have a Harry that's not a foul-tempered drunk, and then feels bad about the thought even though they've hit a new record on how long they can go without communicating— and so John grimaces, thumb hovering over the screen, Sherlock warm and stiff beside him.

In a huff about something, flipping fast through pages on his own phone, studiously ignoring John and if there wasn't a thread of worry inside John he'd be far more angry than he is.

But there is, so he isn't.

So he considers the text far longer than he needs to.

He's still getting used to this phone— Clara's last birthday gift, her smile brilliant as he'd accepted— and fine, maybe his old one really did need to be retired, but his old one is still tucked carefully into a box (with its scratches and its engraving, with its texts from years before still filling its inbox, texts he'd gone through in the nights when he'd been unable to stop himself) and maybe it isn't a bad phone, maybe Clara has always known him even when they go so long without talking that they _shouldn't_ be close at all anymore.

(“You're actually as big a bastard as Harry,” she says sometimes, and then always adds, “but you're a hell of a doctor and you're short so I think people just don't _care_.”)

_busy tonight, made plans_

he finally lies, and taps the phone against his knee and waits, and doesn't let himself look over at Sherlock, keeps his mouth closed as the cab carries them the familiar distance.

_if it's mary, I knew you first_

Sally shoots back, and then adds

_and didn't she leave you, dump your arse just a little bit before the wedding?_

John lingers over the second message, lifts his head finally, but Sherlock is still working by himself on something, phone turned away in a clear demand for privacy.

Fine, then, the both of them can have a sulk, and John has friends he can go out with, Sherlock doesn't, but then he doesn't want Sherlock to leave the flat anyway, not without him, it's simply— too terrifying, and it's only gotten worse since the night with the door.

Since the maybes had been offered and avoided.

_it's not mary tonight, and it's not your business anyway_

he starts with more heat in the little pixels than he really means to have (a lie, and an ugly one) but it's Sally, Sally who'd broken his nose with tears in her eyes and a terrible suspicion in her trembling mouth, and they'd hidden together in their useless guilt and suffered, her alone in her work and him with Mary at his side, and Sally is such a terrifying voice of reason—

_you canceled last time we made plans, finally dropped your boots by the freak's bed?_

bursts back at him and he closes his eyes, drops his head back against the seat and sighs deeply, considering how many different things he would have done to prevent exactly this conversation, but of course he can't because it's _Sally_ , and how the hell are they still friends anyway, he doesn't know how it works, how it happened, and Mary's gone and still there and it's the same somehow, but Sally's a stubborn growth on his heart, one as difficult to remove as Clara and—

_i'm not having this conversation_

he texts unhappily, and cannot even put down his phone before he gets

_so that's a yes, then_

and the words are there, yes, but there are other words too, entire sentences hidden within the pixelated little comment, Sally a terrifying mix of awareness and curiosity, and he types quickly

_that's not your business_

but she too-quickly replies

_oh no?_

and so he stops and stares at the words, and then finally closes the message, places the phone on his knee and steadfastly refuses to look at anything.

“You've finally found a less educated texting partner. Capitalization, John, please remind her.”

John jerks his head, gives Sherlock the best glare he can manage but it isn't much of one and he knows it, there are too many words between them now and he's not backed down, not even close, but Sherlock's drawn back from him, folded himself away again now that they're alone. And John's got nothing to push against now, and little urge to try despite that.

Too much pain looking back, much too terrifying to glance even a little bit ahead.

Here, in this false stillness, it looks like they can pretend it's all the same.

A chime under his fingertips.

John accepts the message wearily, drinks the little words off the screen

_you have to tell somebody if your ever going to figure it out_

Beside him Sherlock murmurs a little too tightly “you _are_ ” but is staring pointedly out of the window when John glances his way with a half-thought to say something.

No forward, no back.

So John says nothing, and does not respond to Sally, scrolling instead to another contact, opening another message, composing another string of words— a momentary tremble as his phone receives another message— and feelings too wary and uneasy as he sends them.

When it sends, when it blinks to his home screen, he opens the last nagging note from Sally—

_don't be a coward, captain_

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

John blames the smoke he can taste even after the blasting hot shower, blames the softness of the shirt and pajama bottoms that had been waiting for them when they had finally reached the brightness of the sleeping city, blames the hour he had spent alone in the room while Mary had spent so very long in the shower and come out so calmly so much later.

Blames the emptiness in Mary's eyes that he knows is the real her, blames the honesty of her.

Blames the private bar they have decimated.

“Do you ever tell the truth?”

“When someone already knows it, yes.” Mary's begun to slouch in her chair a little (the most at-ease he's ever seen her) and her eyes watch him now with something close to a confusion that he knows too well. “It's unnatural for me to give anything of myself away willingly.”

Enough time has passed that their hair has dried from their showers, that he can sense the late morning sun even through the heavy drapes they had pulled when they had entered.

Safe in their post-adrenaline haze, they are no danger to one another.

John can see that her nails are short and clean, can see the tip of her ponytail curling almost prettily where it rests on one shoulder, can see that her face is soft and slack and open.

“Are you drunk?” he asks vaguely, wanting this out of the way before he continues.

“Not as drunk as you.” True.

John thinks of her outline in the smoke, thinks of her hesitation, of her confusion. Thinks of how she had followed only after he had backed down, waited, obeyed.

This is not the intricate dance of risk and promise that he had never consciously created with Sherlock, is so far from the delicate threads of awareness or the brushes of too-deep contact, of a terrifying possibility far away enough to be safe but inching ever nearer—

(a quick fissure opens between one heartbeat and the next, anguish filling him anew the way it always does when he remembers the words and the fall, the stillness beneath his fingers, the Soldier and Doctor gone and the Man left defenseless)

This is a solid security he lunges for before it is even offered, a hard and heavy chain he wraps around himself like a blanket, safe and still as a fortress, endless and final as a noose.

Salt on his tongue, and he swallows and raises the glass to his mouth, swallows again.

“Do you cry this much when you're sober?” Mary asks softly, and he shakes his head slowly, carefully, cannot pull the words out to even give her a full answer. As he reaches to wipe his face with his free hand— “I stopped crying when I was very young.”

Mary is telling the truth, the bluntness of her words an odd safety.

“Yes, yes, me too,” is all he can get out, and that's all he needs.

Mary does not see him the way— he had, does not look at him with a gaze that threatens to undo him, that silently urges him to unfold, open, expose himself even more. She has no interest in understanding him, has no desire to figure him out, only catches his gaze and shares with him some private language he wishes he were ashamed to know.

 _I do kill people_ , she had assured him, his gun to her head, and the truth of her is a salve.

“You're still crying, John.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

John says nothing, will stand his ground only on this issue, will hold only these words back— because he has already decided that Mary will have all of him except for this.

The reality of him is hers now, but the possibilities will remain as dead as the one he had promised them to without even realizing it, have been locked desperately up and pushed away into the farthest reaches of himself and will not see the light of day again.

Things that are gone do not come back, what isn't never will be.

It is hard enough to live without wondering of the _what ifs_ and of the _maybes_.

“John,” Mary says, and then “ _John_ ” before she closes her mouth.

Stares at him as if unsure she even wants to be in the same room as him.

“I am not a good man,” he reminds her and his words bring a bitter softening of the skin around her eyes, her head tipping back against the chair as she grimaces a grin.

“No worse than me,” she assures him, and she is always assuring him, it seems.

The sheer existence of her is an assurance.

“Are you drunk now?”

“No,” she breathes into the space between them, and almost seems— disappointed.

As though such a loss of control is beyond even her capabilities.

“You do understand that you're an adrenaline addict, John?” Yes, of course he knows even if the world doesn't. “High levels of stress early in life—” _Like me_. “You don't need to save me.” An edge to the words, Mary uncomfortable with his loyalty even as she wants to accept it.

“I didn't save you,” he reminds her carefully, “I just followed you.”

Truth, and she stares at him, takes a sip from her glass and stares some more.

Takes him in as if he is a gift she does not yet fully know how to use.

A weapon she has not handled yet.

(strange how much safer it feels to be a weapon than a soldier, a killer, than even a doctor that is such a mass of contradictions— and he remembers Sebastian's harsh eyes and harsher judgment, the rejection and the disgust— and he remembers how it had felt to be _almost_ all of himself for a precious eighteen months, before it had been taken from him.)

The words spill from him before he can stop them, before he can choke them down—

“Do you have regrets?”

The distance between them turns fragile, brittle, her head lifting as if to feign indifference.

“No,” fills the room, her voice sounding thick and choked, and her shoulders twitch oddly, her eyes shifting to the wall above him, shutting him out— and then “yes,” this word tumbling out of her, the lines of her body tightening like cording, “yes, there was a girl in Pakistan—”

Mary catches herself, muscles in her jaw stilling, eyes locked still above him.

“A boy,” he assures her, “a boy in Afghanistan—”

Things he does not even know how to talk about, because the words he has do not match the words of the soldiers around him, do not match the words that should be inside him.

They have caught themselves, just in time.

All that can be said, can be spoken— and for some time they merely sit in their silence and drink a bit too slowly, sip and swallow and reach for the bottles on the table between them.

“I think—” Mary stops, falters, and it is the most rattled he has seen her since they had met, and his face is still wet, and his hands are still shaking. “I think you're almost like me.”

Impossible.

Because John is a mess before her, cannot fully understand where the Doctor and the Soldier end, where the helplessness of the Man begins, cannot stop crying now that it has started, cannot stop drinking— and this is why he never drinks more than a beer very often, why he never drinks alone, why he never answers when Harry calls unless he has to—

Impossible because Mary is solid and steady as a vow, stares at him with such devastatingly clear eyes despite the alcohol she has tipped back, and yet the smile on her face somehow offers him an image of how she must have looked as a girl, finds it reflects him too well.

They are survivors, the two of them, and he is too grateful for the moral compass he has so desperately created for himself, is thankful that he possesses loyalty. They have learned to thrive where others would perish, to leave their insides behind as they progress forward.

(and of course they have thrived, that's what this is, they _have_ thrived, that's the only answer)

“I think—” Pause, consider, “that there are—” She weighs each word that forms inside her, frees them only slowly. “I think that very few people—” Dangerous words, dangerous in ways that neither of them have ever learned to cope with. “There are very few people— for us.”

An awful brittle truth that had begun to fracture beneath a smooth baritone and frenzied activity, that had dimmed as the light in Sherlock's impossible gaze had swelled for him. (it had been the first time that Sherlock had not _seen_ him, not _known him_ , when the body had been rolled so easily, and inside him, an old knowledge made new— _built to be alone_. And hadn't Sherlock insisted that right before, hadn't he spoken the old words in John's heart?)

“Maybe that's for the best,” he manages then, and her smile twists, turns painful.

John wonders if anyone else has seen this smile, knows with an odd certainty that no one has.

He watches the thoughts shift across her face, slip in and out of her dark eyes.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asks then, and sounds like she already knows the answer, and of course she does, of course, but she asks anyway. “Not the brief obsession we pretend to have, not the settling, not the stillness and the hiding—” And oh, _she knows_ , somehow she knows and this knowledge hurts in a way it shouldn't. “Did it free you, John?”

A fragility beneath the question, beneath that glint of vicious awareness in her eyes, and he knows too well what she has been left with— there and then gone, and if there is a difference between them, perhaps it matters far less than what is not different.

Because Mary had tasted her freedom, had seen it and been seen, and had rejected it, had fled.

His had been taken from him, stolen, and now that he knows the intricacies, the truths that Sally has found and shared with him as well as the rest of the world, it is all the worse. Moriarty had come to them with the intent to destroy and John had not done _enough_ (another old truth made new again: he has never been _enough_ ) and Sherlock is gone. Had chosen them and had died, and despite Clara's visits and Sally's presence, despite Mrs. Hudson calling him whenever she can think of a reason to flutter about him, he is alone.

(Sebastian's stare of revulsion, as if John had not been protecting a patient, as if the shot had been a conscious consideration instead of a snap decision, as if the boy had not been a danger— “you fuck, Watson, you _fucker_ ,” Sebastian had said with something so dangerously close to hysteria in his voice, and the boy had been dead by then, and somehow John had still slept that night and every night after until the steady chaos of the war had abandoned him as well.)

( _alone is what I have, alone protects me_ , spoken in that hard and unforgiving tone, and then he had jumped anyway, had fallen to the stones at John's feet, and the truth is so much worse than the earlier lies, is what really eats at John in the nights— that Sherlock had _chosen_ him, _him_ , and that this is what he is left with, the ugly certainty that Sherlock had chosen _wrong_.)

“Yes,” he tells her now and then, “ _yes_ ” but can say nothing else.

It is the absence that leaves him chained.

Mary turns her face away from his confession, closes herself away as she processes his truth.

“You're like me.” Her profile is smooth, undisturbed— but she remains turned away, keeps him pushed to the periphery of her awareness. “I think you're like me, John.” And she tips her nearly empty glass backs carefully before setting it on the table between them. “I can use you,” she says, and seems both relieved by and unsure of it as she gets to her feet, crosses the distance until she can stand before him, the destruction in her a commitment. “I am a liar, John, I _lie_.”

“I don't care.” He's sure of it, drunk and sure of himself, and she still smells like fire and like smoke as she looms over him, threads fingers through his hair and _pulls_ like she's testing the weight. "I don't care..." And John really _doesn't_ care one way or another, can't seem to dig that much of himself up from where it rests with the body beneath a headstone, from where it had been left on the sidewalk.

“I am already lying to you,” Mary promises him as if trying to force secrets into the words.

All he manages, his tired words his only possible offering— “I really don't care anymore.”

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

Sherlock is out of his pajamas for the first time in days when John wakes, staggers downstairs with aching muscles and a frightful weight in his chest, _maybe_ cutting through him in a way that is debilitating. And Sherlock is sitting in his chair, just _sitting in his chair_ trying to look like this is still natural, and he's actually _dressed_ even though he doesn't seem to be planning on leaving the flat, dark colors and smooth lines and a vague kind of stare at the wall as he thinks and it's like they are themselves again— and John's hand jerks before he thinks, flicks the dressing gown he'd been gripping with white knuckles hastily over the back of Sherlock's chair, and Sherlock still does not look at him.

Because the flat still looks a half-wreck but Sherlock seems, for a moment, the same—

Like _Sherlock_ , like the ridiculous man that he is, like the last years haven't happened, like he'd found a way off that rooftop that hadn't involved the grief John _still_ can't let go of. Sherlock is _alive_ , had come back to him, and John is still somehow grieving, cannot _stop_.

And Sherlock is not looking at him, looks very much like he cannot bear to let his eyes move to John, and so his base courage doesn't flee, not truly, but it wavers enough that John falters, and with no place to hide John's left to draw in a shaking breath, straighten his spine—

A twitch, a smothered flinch, in the stiff line of Sherlock's shoulders, and John turns abruptly away, forces the line of his gaze purposefully past the man because this is new.

New and strange and threatening, this edginess that he seems to bring out in Sherlock, and if he's honest with himself he knows he'd always wanted this, always craved such a response in Sherlock. Always wished, however secret and shameful it had been, that he could cause even a mild reaction in this man, could create even a momentary— change.

But after sleep, after waking to the sheet hung so carefully, it is too much for John to handle, and the weight in his arms hours before feels too far away, and he's unsettled now, it's too—

“You said you were going to clean up,” he starts when he's sure that his voice sounds the way it should but Sherlock says nothing, and continues to say nothing.

John's head thinks, vaguely, that Sherlock still seems to be at a loss, out of his element— and it just makes John's heart pick up speed, makes something like awful delight bloom inside.

Sherlock, so obviously refusing to meet his eyes and yet just as clearly tensed as though ready to lunge forward should John give him the slightest reason to respond, is an agonizing echo of how John has silently suffered.

Except that then Sherlock _looks_ at him, _stares_ , and whatever is left of his courage splinters.

Because he'd known Sherlock for so many months before the rooftop and the burial and the nightmares and the doubts that had driven him to a near-certainty that yes, he must be insane, he had to be, _it couldn't be_ — he'd shared a home and food and money and even a few articles of clothing with this man, had taken more than one life for this man, had saved lives with this man, had trusted this man with the parts of him that he'd been so sure he'd never be able to dig up again after how deeply he'd buried them— but even with the awful crack that he still doesn't know how to bridge since Sherlock's return months before, he is cut down, split open and cleaned out in such a small moment by the look on Sherlock's face now.

Sherlock destroys him without even meaning to.

The man looks young and old at once, skin shockingly pale even considering it's _him_ , line of his neck tight, shape of his shoulders tighter, eyes pale and sharp and viciously demanding, and John is a strong man but his heart is weak, and all of him is _tired_.

Pettiness sparks inside him, rushes to fill the cracks that a part of John had almost believed he'd be able to fill himself, draw closed and seal tight because with Sherlock he's always been capable of _all_ instead of _some_. He hears his voice say, “Thought you'd like to have it back” with a nod to the dressing gown and an edge to the words that he never could have believed himself capable of, and it's nonsensical (reducing himself to the level Sherlock reserves only for Mycroft in terms of sheer childishness) but somehow viciously cruel, and it hits, and it's a relief.

A relief, the way Sherlock jerks in that barely visible way, the way the line of his jaw snaps beneath his flesh, the immediacy of Sherlock's too-human shut down.

 _Alone is what I have_ , he hears (just some of the words driven deep where John's finally accepted he can never hope to erase them) and thinks hatefully, _yes, yes, so suffer with it, keep it, keep it and nothing else, keep it and enjoy it because I’ll give you nothing else_.

There's silence when he turns away, when he leaves Sherlock here, alone.

Sherlock does not call after him, does not stop him, does not demand his attention.

The sheet waits for him once he gets up the stairs, and it's a nice sheet, somehow feels impossibly important that it's there at all after Sherlock's destruction. Then something crashes downstairs, metal striking metal, glass shattering, and John draws himself together and eases into the mess of his bed, buries himself in his covers.

Below there is the muted sound of Sherlock attempting to swallow his shout, another crash that promises one last burst of uncontrolled destruction, and the slam of a door that he knows signals Sherlock finally retreating into his own bedroom.

Much more of the flat is cleaned when John wakes from an unhappy sleep, but Sherlock's door remains closed (and only the coat and the scarf at the door keep John from panicking).

In John's heart, a bitter truth: _better he stay locked away than leave again_.

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

John _happens_ without his knowledge, and certainly without his permission.

Sherlock will liken the changes to a chain of precious metal in the years that follow, a fine thing so slight it can be ignored until it catches the light just so and blinds— so much like John himself. Mild John he believes to be so malleable (so easily put to use), soft-willed John who sputters with indignation (the _faces_ he makes) but always comes when he calls, John in his checked shirt (he sees it so rarely but delights whenever the sharp pattern graces his presence) and with his subtle expressions (a _feast_ for Sherlock) and, really, why does the man even bother to speak?

What point is there in working so hard to use a language that cannot contain this man anyway?

Sherlock has already spent months dissecting the bits and pieces, and still cannot find the man.

(later his brain begins to collapse, the stress inside and out building beyond its limits, his body struggling to carry him as the walls of his palace tumble into unfamiliar wreckage— and though he recognizes the PTSD for what it is easily enough once the game stops and the killings begin, his acknowledgment does little to lessen the strain and, oh, he _yearns_ )

But now he has not killed yet, now Moriarty is only a distant promise, now he basks in the _freedom_ of his self-awareness, now John is _unhappy_ and attempting to _hide_ it from him.

The last picks at the corners of his conscious thinking, feels like a— problem.

Sherlock thinks dismissively, _it's in my interests for him to stay reasonably healthy and content_.

Completely alert despite the full two days and one night without sleep, it still only takes several hours for John's muted _presence_ to scrap Sherlock's nerves raw. Because John smells like sweat and coffee in addition to his usual smells (the coffee only appears when his mental faculties begin to go) and he's beginning to jiggle his leg where he's been sitting for hours (audible despite Sherlock staying firmly in the kitchen space) and now—

There is a sigh.

Only a fragile noise, almost soundless in the busy silence that John is dominating the way he seems capable of dominating everything else, and yet Sherlock stills before it.

Can almost physically feel _John_ in the bits and pieces, the way that sigh wavers and dies. Frustrated acceptance, exhaustion, stress, a body incapable of keeping food down but _hungry_. Some pain that borders on physical, dismissed most nights but not tonight, and maybe John is _bored_ , he'll never admit it but he gets bored so easily, and it's been several weeks since Sherlock had been able to offer him a case that could hold both of their interests (not really fun without _both_ , without John).

Except that John always tells him, always without words, when he is bored.

(at first only threats to begin cooking healthier meals and mentions of picking up extra shifts at the clinic but if things are _really_ terrible, his voice always too light from his chair: “oh, that girl I met the other day, I still have her number, did I tell you about her?” and that last always causes a jolt of emotion that Sherlock will not recognize as dread and fear and _failure_ )

No, John is— upset.

The realization creates a jarring dropping sensation deep in Sherlock's abdomen.

Almost silence again, John struggling to control his fidgeting, obviously bothered that he had sighed so openly, that his body had slipped his control before he could stop it.

Sherlock's mouth opens for a wavering beat, the tip of his tongue slipping to brush his bottom lip, his breath that fills his lungs feeling too big for his body as he pushes it back out. He listens more closely now, connects the slow and too-steady breathing to all of the facial expressions and body language that John has filled his mind with, frowning as he processes.

John is in his chair still (all of his focus on their door), wearing sweatpants and his longer sleeved shirt (feeling even colder than usual) and now Sherlock remembers hearing the soft clink of ceramic far too many times (picking up his cup but forgetting to drink).

Sherlock leans back from his work, considers.

Hyper vigilante tonight, obviously exhausted but seemingly incapable of leaving Sherlock—

 _Ah_ , he thinks, and feels sure-footed once again.

Pleased that John's mood makes as much sense to him as any emotions ever do, Sherlock finishes the last ten minutes of his current work and sets it aside. Then he adjusts one sleeve of his shirt as well as a particularly unruly curl at the nape of his neck and leaves the kitchen.

John reacts as immediately to his existence as he always does, fingers flexing across the worn fabric of the chair, eyes cutting fast over every inch of Sherlock with that pointed fierceness.

He hides it most of the time, and Sherlock works hard not to mind.

Better that the population never fully grasp what the slight body of the doctor houses, and if Sherlock sometimes feels that growing simmering urge to brag about John to anyone who will listen, he shuts it down easily enough when he remembers what it would be like to _share_ John.

The increasingly rare but always irritating paramours are bad enough.

(enough of a miracle that he is no longer so alone, that he can be himself every moment of every day and that John still speaks to him, smiles at him, seems to _enjoy his company_ and he laughs, really _laughs_ , at his jokes and only the years with Mycroft allow him to distance himself from all that John _creates_ inside him)

(enough of a miracle that he has found John first, that he can keep him to himself, that no one has taken him before Sherlock could find him)

“What are you doing?” slips from John the second he realizes Sherlock is going to join him (relief, irritation, exhaustion) and then, “ _no_ ” when he sees where Sherlock is going.

“You do have your own room,” Sherlock dismisses, and thinks vaguely that the smile John's desperate groan brings out of him is an entirely different type of victory.

Small angry movements as John watches him begin preparations that in all honesty should take him only a fraction of the time he spends on them— setting the case on the table just so, cursory glances over the instrument to ensure it looks correct before he even touches it, lifting it up to test its weight as if he even needs to before putting it right back down again. Another five minutes are spent fiddling with his shirt, his hair, attempting to be as comfortable as possible before he begins— and only now does he finally bring out the resin.

John's breathing has changed behind him, is a perfect blend of frustration and fascination, and Sherlock finds more and more that this response is something he hates the thought of losing.

Minutes pass, stretch, and he lifts the violin twice more, sets it back down both times.

Abruptly, words harsh but tone uneven: “If you take any longer you're going to forget what you were originally going to play, you know that right?”

“Don't be foolish, I have a multitude of pieces memorized, John.”

Including the ridiculously jaunty folk songs that always make John disappear too quickly upstairs, every muscle in his body quivering with an obvious desire to demolish the instrument.

Unhappy shifting behind him and he smooths the smile from his face as he finally lifts the violin, settles for a milder jig before he saunters into the harsher pieces, to begin the pressure slowly—

(keep him aggravated, keep him distracted from his _problems_ , make him respond the way he had always made Mycroft _respond_ , even impossible Mycroft with his guileless _lying_ eyes and his false face, and Sherlock will choose destruction over indifference every time)

But something is lost, his decision faltering before his body completes it, and he turns just as John goes impossibly still, face closing off as the first soft note escapes.

Sherlock finds himself locked in a moment unfamiliar to him, and though it will remain perfectly etched within for all the years of his life, now his mind struggles to recover from its failure.

Now his hand moves of its own accord (steady and _thoughtless_ in a way that he cannot remember it being before) and John stares at him, and there is something there in his gaze, something dangerous but carefully controlled, and _curious_ in a way that seems— painful.

Sherlock has taken him by surprise.

(has taken himself by surprise)

John is already confused and tired, badly triggered and overprotective, and now he is watching Sherlock expectantly, hopefully. There is an air of anticipation filling the space with a warmth that Sherlock finds unfamiliar but perhaps not... entirely unendurable.

Torn between two realities equally unfamiliar to him, between the sharp betrayal of his thoughts and the newly concrete _trust_ in now-familiar eyes, Sherlock chooses _John_.

It's a soft piece, a light thing that had been boring and too simple for him even when he'd been almost too young to remember, but it spills from where he'd left it ( _forgotten_ ) so many years before— and now the notes spin free with sudden force like thread from a dropped spool.

It must be a lullaby, he dimly thinks, only a lullaby could sound so soft coming from him.

(it's not, actually, but he doesn't remember yet that his mother had played this, had composed it herself when she'd been a student— and she'd performed for both of her children when they had been young despite Mycroft having no interest in her or anyone else and Sherlock being just the opposite, latching to her desperately whenever she'd been freed from her work.)

John catches his gaze so fearlessly and _waits_ , and Sherlock _responds_.

Plays a piece that suddenly seems as if it had been made for John.

This piece he can't remember learning might be a bit... sentimental in tone, but it's not unpleasant, and once Sherlock begins paying _attention_ , he realizes it quite fits his doctor. Idiots would think the whole to be soft, innocent, but there is a sharpness to the individual notes that makes Sherlock think vaguely of the gun tucked comfortably amongst John's ridiculous cabled jumpers.

As Sherlock watches him, trying and failing to focus on how he'd committed an action he had not agreed to make, John suddenly ceases his tense vigil, resettles his weight just so in his chair—

Closes his eyes, and sighs—

It's an absolutely _useless_ thing, the way that John offers him this trust without words, and it'll provide no different an outcome than the manipulation that John allows him to play on the world at large in addition to John himself, but something trembles inside him dangerously.

Then surges, even froths, and he's grateful that John has closed his eyes, leaned his head back.

Grateful that he cannot catch the ridiculous way that Sherlock finds his throat working to swallow, that he does not notice the all-over shivering shudder that Sherlock cannot fight.

(he had been little but still too restless, and he remembers watching chemical reactions when his parents had been home for more than a few days at a time, when they had allowed him to play with the toys he really wanted instead of the _ridiculous_ ones they trusted the nannies with. His mother insisted on safety goggles, always safety _always_ , and his father had tipped glass to glass and _there_ , two separates folding together and then rushing upwards, growing, up and out of the glass that had thought to confine and rushing impossibly fast wherever it could reach.)

Sherlock plays music he doesn't remember learning, and watches John drift and drift until he falls into a soft but steady sleep, and breathes as his body struggles to contain his insides.

There is a warmth inside him now, but there's a sudden cold too, not the aching chill that he remembers as _Mycroft_ but a new thing. It's a sharp and cutting cold that makes Sherlock think of lemon juice in paper cuts and nights alone on the street, his fingers folded into his palms.

( _let him_ , he had thought in a daze that was only half caused by the drugs and half because of the weakness in his heart he had not yet learned to ignore, _let him search for me like an idiot, like the idiot he won't admit to being, the fat idiot he is, let him search and never find me_ )

In the morning John will steadfastly avoid any indication that this moment has happened, and Sherlock will gratefully do the same, but right now Sherlock responds to him with no edges and John rests, seemingly utterly content that he will be cared for should anything happen.

And he finds that the warm weight of John's trust is— frightening.

He thinks (hopes) that _now_ should be easy to delete in the months that follow, and yet it's not.

Sherlock will remember this night (and other nights and other moments and a trusting grin and a familiar voice that he sometimes finds alarming) in the back of his thoughts, in the dark corners of his palace where he hides a new fear he cannot admit he has no control over.

 

 

* * *

Between the brewing unease in the pit of his stomach and the secret _things_ hidden deep in his thoughts, John wonders if it's a possibility that he's never actually _seen_ Sherlock angry.

Not the childish frustration that is a core of Sherlock, but these silent cutting hollows between Sherlock's words that John knows are filled with other unspoken things.

Things that are ugly and selfish, illogical and yet completely concrete.

John has been this angry— at Harry for leaving him and Mum for pretending she hadn't every day despite sitting across the room and Dad, oh _Dad_ — but he suspects that what Sherlock is feeling is different. Because that rage had been a private thing, safely acknowledged within the coils that had bound the Watson family together despite their unhappiness in their situation.

( _you know this too_ : a muffled awareness in the awful places of John's heart, _you know this because this is how it is for you now, you want to hurt him, want him to suffer, you know this_ )

There's a slowness to Sherlock since the morning after the Night that things had begun but not finished, and he hides it as they slip out but lets it free again once they cross the threshold of 221B, and while at first John had wondered if this part of Sherlock is dangerous—

But no, not dangerous to him, not to John.

Sherlock is keeping a tight leash on this anger, is smothering it down even as he exposes it, even as he makes sure to meet John's gaze when he does so. _This is yours_ , John can read in the familiar eyes that seem strangely pale with emotion John will not (cannot bear to) label, _this is yours, look at it, know that it's yours, know that it belongs only to you_.

He shows it, flashes it, but keeps it focused inward.

It creates an odd worry in John, an old worry that is so unlike anything he's been capable of feeling for Sherlock since the words and the fall, and it is as it should be— Sherlock acting oddly, Doctor Watson worried about his consulting detective, and _where is your anger going to go?_

Slow, too controlled, stillness between movements that to John signal that Sherlock is weathering a private storm that John has never glimpsed before.

But John's really very angry as well, that's the problem, and he's getting more pissed off.

Because Sherlock's now mentioned going out alone three times in a week, quick words that cause jolts of panic inside John each time. The words irritate and frighten, and the way that Sherlock pointedly meets his gaze each time he speaks only makes him want to respond.

And now—

“He's an important man.”

(John glances rather uselessly at his phone here, the way he has three times since they'd gotten back, but knows better than to be holding his breath. _I only use e-mail to blend in_ , Mary has said more than once and John knows her this well, knows that she has texted him perhaps a dozen times in the time that he's known her. She's a phone call woman, not a typer, he needs to just _call her_.)

“With a gambling debt,” Sherlock returns, and despite John's irritation the safety goggles planted firmly on Sherlock's face are— John will _not_ consider them adorable, finding Sherlock adorable in the midst of this awful tangle between them shouldn't be possible. (Even though it is, and the way his curls puff out beneath the cording makes John aware of how easy it would be to slip them free as he walks by, smooth them with a twist of his fingers _just to do it_ before moving on and leaving Sherlock with whatever chaos it is he's dreamed up today)

(and he knows now how the curls feel, had felt them brushing his throat, his jaw, his chin as Sherlock had slept up against him with such trust that it had— no, it has, it _has_ decimated him)

(and he wonders helplessly whether Sherlock would move into the touch at the back of his head or ignore it in the midst of his work, wonders if there would be a noiseless little sound of enjoyment at the contact or if he would mutter _later, John, you can pet me later_ )

“You seemed pretty captivated by the guest before.”

Sherlock does not respond, turns his face away just so, and John is half-convinced he's _fiddling_.

 _Is this an Argument?_ something in John questions, and he hurriedly turns the thought away.

(an Argument instead of just a fight, something he's never experienced before but had seen as a small boy when visiting his great-aunt and uncle, together sixty-one years and gone within six months of one another after his grandmother had collapsed one afternoon in the midst of her weeding, and they had Argued as they had lived, all in and fearless but never cruel.)

He says, “ _Sherlock_ ” and only grows more rattled as Sherlock studies open notes and fiddles with bottles, shifts things back and forth amongst the table in a restless, too slow way.

“What are we going to do for dinner, then?”

A slashing look, quicksilver glinting blue, no, green, that's green in this light (how could have he forgotten this angle, this one single angle in addition to every other he'd never forgotten) and there, a twitch of movement at the corner of his mouth, displeasure—

The eye contact is hastily severed.

As if John has ever been able to read anything in those eyes, as if the rare guesses that he had made had ever been acknowledged with anything beyond a sniff, or maybe even a lip curl of distaste, ah, the lip curl, how he had and hadn't missed the lip curl of distaste—

As if _how dare you pretend to be capable of existing in my presence, John?_ hadn't been obvious.

“Are we not speaking at all tonight?”

Sherlock looks right at him then, pointedly, disapproval unmistakable.

If Mycroft were the victim of such a stare, John knows he'd be giggling right now.

John forcefully swallows a mouthful of cold tea, forcefully swallows a second, isn't quite sure why he's out here with his computer (getting nothing done) instead of upstairs in his room (getting nothing done) and it's been a while since it's been like this, the two of them so clearly sharing space but there's still a new wall, thick and fearful and uncertain—

“You're making the face,” Sherlock informs him, and John, struggles to step back into himself, feels his fingers gripping tight to the phone in his lap, knows he's been staring at Sherlock. Searching his face, his body, all of the space that Sherlock fills so utterly.

“You'll be useless for anything else tonight,” Sherlock accuses, childish in his certainty, and John closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, is acutely aware of the difference that three years has made in him. Because he remembers how the teasing comment that Sherlock had always meant innocently had always made his insides blaze, how the dismissive glance that Sherlock had always paired with it had always scraped his nerves raw—

(part of him embarrassed by his own lack of control, another part heated at hearing such words in _Sherlock's_ voice, yet another curling away because _such things were not an option_ )

“Go see your Mary.”

Like the idiot he is, the idiot Sherlock has always seen him for— “Excuse me?”

“Since my return you have managed to spend at least two nights a week at her residence— three or four nights becoming more normal in the last two months— and have always returned here with leftovers. Three times you have returned with newly-knitted items, the last being the gray scarf if I remember correctly—” Off John's sharp glance, the immediate twist of his mouth— “which you know that I do. Has she not messaged you at all?”

John doesn't say anything, genuinely doesn't trust himself.

Only grips the phone in the one hand and keeps the computer on his left knee.

“Maybe I'll go to Tesco,” Sherlock adds slowly, and John closes his eyes, fights a roll of rage that frightens him in its intensity (is this what happens, too much good turning awful and sick inside? and he remembers his parents speaking to one another like this, and all of the awfulness that had always followed) and a deeper surge of fear (will he disappear if he leaves again?) and it's too much.

“You don't know how to shop,” John reminds him too sharply and Sherlock pauses in the middle of all of the _nothing_ he's so focused on, looks right at him, right through him.

An accusation in his eyes, a threat in the thin line of his mouth.

John almost says, _please don't_ but then doesn't get the chance.

“I am fully capable of providing for my physical body, John, and did so quite adequately for several years while you sat in London and got fat—” In the back of John's head, a wild vague thought— _no, Sherlock, that's Mycroft's weakness, not mine_ — and then the same knowledge crosses Sherlock's face, creases the skin at his eyes almost comically, and here, this moment—

John finds himself oddly sure that this is still Sherlock, _his_ Sherlock, mildly embarrassed at a failed plan of attack but already calculating what he can use instead and John smiles despite the splinters that the words cause inside him, finds his body tensing to act, to move.

A few steps across the distance, a quick surge into Sherlock's space—

 _Sherlock_ , now looking away as he weighs his words, as he frowns to himself, as the sweep of his lips curve down and the set of his shoulders twist under his dressing gown, _Sherlock_ —

Chiming, short and startling, and he blinks, blinks again.

Jerks his eyes down and back up in time to see Sherlock cast the phone a vicious stare, gaze hardening in a way that John cannot understand, lips curling into something like a snarl—

Three words blink up at him when he tears his eyes from Sherlock's frighteningly open face, the pixels doing little to fill the broad space of the screen around them.

_Stop it, John._

Sudden tightness in his chest, a jarring sensation so far removed from the frightening thrill that Sherlock brings out in him. Dangerous, too dangerous, and his fingers flex compulsively around the little phone, tighten and release, tighten and release again and then again.

Sherlock is still staring at him, watching, searching, cataloging.

When he speaks, there's a twist to the words, a slow edge— “Your Mary.”

Ludicrous, really.

Mary is too whole, too full, too _complete_ to be any part of anyone else.

“I'll be back later,” he hears himself say then, and barely thinks how his voice is already hitting a frazzled pitch as he sets his computer aside, grunts to his feet too quickly. “Just do me a favor—” He wavers, struggles to stay where he is mentally. “Just— wait here, I'll be back later, we can nag Lestrade later if you decide you want to take the case anyway.”

Like Sherlock is a child.

Like John is still so desperately afraid that he'll be gone again if he's not where John tells him to be, and yet impossibly Sherlock is nodding at him too slowly, accepting the order like he's going to follow it but he _has_ , hasn't he, like a well-trained dog that John still can't trust not to run into the road if he looks away—

_don't, you don't— have to right now_

—and John says, “hell” with a heat he can't help and doesn't allow himself to cross the last few steps across the distance because it's been working for a week (more than that, it's been working far longer than that, but Sherlock used to _help_ ) and he needs it to keep working—

_Stop it, John._

—and there's something too close to fear brewing beneath his surface as he runs, flees, moves.

 

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

“No, John.” He makes a face but doesn't stop his chopping, listens to Mary huff in irritation as if the mere idea is beyond her ability to comprehend. “I _hate_ dogs.”

“How can you hate dogs?”

“Easily,” she snaps and she's so— infuriated that he's laughing before he can help himself, forced to put down the knife because nobody at the A&E will let him live it down if he has to go in with his thumb in a bag of ice. “Smelly, noisy, messy, always wanting your attention and always complaining and whining when they don't get it.”

“Man's best friend,” he insists and she blows out a breath through her nose and looks so offended that he gives up any hope of picking up the knife for the foreseeable future.

“They're all brats,” she retorts, and he leans over the kitchen counter, tries to breathe.

“So you're a cat person, then.”

“If I have to share my space, I'd rather it be with something that won't destroy half of my home if I leave for two hours and it becomes convinced that, oh no, I'm never coming home.” The last words are said in a low-pitched false-terrified tone that sets him off again, and he presses his palms to his face, and oh, oh no, he's starting to _giggle_.

“Captain,” Mary says quietly some distance away, and that just makes it worse.

Because she hadn't blinked when he'd had a gun in her face or as they'd fled the heat and the flame and the chaos together later, has never shown an inkling of fear in all the months that he's known her, but little things, harmless things—

“Give me that damn knife,” she orders and he steps immediately to the side, resting his arse against the counter as she gets to work on the carrots he'd been chopping, wielding the kitchen knife with a skill that is more than a little arousing.

(She doesn't like sex the way he does but she explains whenever he asks that, _no, John, nobody can force me to do anything and I don't mind_ , because she understands it's one of the things he can't help but need and she's— hideously good at giving him what he needs.)

“Before the army, I always had a dog.”

“Probably some kind of bull, right?” and he jerks his head around, genuinely surprised.

“You look like that type,” she says dismissively, sweeping perfectly cut little crescents of carrot into a bowl and starting on the Chinese cabbage like she's waging war.

“They're good dogs,” he defends a little too quickly, and she wrinkles her nose in obvious distaste, shaking her head hard as if trying to get an image out of her head. “All that other nonsense, no, _listen_ , I never had better dogs growing up— Harry had a poodle once, and it nearly took my hand off, Mary, but never had any problems with any of my own dogs. They're easy to train, smarter than they look but never too excitable, brilliant if you're in trouble—”

“Yes, just like you,” Mary states and he stops, blinks at her. “What?”

“I'm not a dog.” And Mary stops mid-chop, stares at the wall in front of her for a very long time. “Mary,” he prods and she takes a deep breath, and he realizes she's trying to keep her mouth shut for his sake— “I'm not a dog,” he barks, and she sets the knife down firmly.

Turns to stare at him, face carefully blank, eyes shuttered.

“ _Mary_.”

“You— are a dog,” she asserts slowly.

John opens his mouth, closes it, tries to figure out exactly what he's feeling. He finally settles, lamely and a bit desperate, “I don't wreck your house when you disappear.”

“Because you've been trained,” she explains, and seems impossibly sure of herself. He opens his mouth, more bothered than he should be, and it's apparently more than she can handle. “You're protective, John, and you need to be needed despite how adept you've become at hiding it, but that just causes you more suffering because you can't shut off your need for emotional contact. You're loyal, you and I both know how very loyal you are, and it's as much a fault as a virtue at this point, and the truth is you're smarter than people want to admit— smart the way I am—” He jerks his gaze away at that, straightens before he can help it like he's just been called to attention. “You thrive when you're given attention and work to do, but you can settle down easily enough as long as someone uses the right hand—”

“Mary,” he says too sharply, his voice threatening to break, and he feels her _swallow_ her words, knows the way she turns back to her work and drops it is a promise of how much she loves him in her own disconnected little way. So he forces out, “I do miss having dogs.”

“I don't like pets,” she argues, and it's gentler now, but just as firm.

“What about a cat?”

“I could stomach a cat,” she replies— and then looks at him with an odd tenderness, head tilting just so to the side, the glint in her eyes a soft shine. “But you don't like cats.”

No, no, he doesn't.

John licks his lips, focuses his eyes on the wall before him, palms flat against the counter.

His mind threatens to slip away, to come undone— a matter of time before they do not have a use for each other, before she stops running from whatever it is she's running from, before the hollow inside him grows bigger than he is, and he doesn't know what will happen then—

Mary says, order in her voice a reprieve from the fear building inside, “Pass me the chicken from the fridge” and he snaps into grateful movement, snapping open the fridge (no head or fingers or toes and for that, it might always seem empty to him) to grab her what she needs.

They don't talk about pets again, and he continues to wish he had a dog.

 

 

* * *

 

Mary opens the door the third time he knocks too quietly.

For a moment John is frozen, still as prey as dark eyes settle on him, as Mary studies his face and leans her own head just so, and he lets her. Allows it, submits to her examination. Examines her in turn. Still in her teaching clothes, soft light colors and softer lines. Hair drawn into a playful braid, bright elastic winking from the end.

Then Mary says, tone more aggrieved than he expects, “ _no_ , John” and looks— irritated.

He jerks forward, heart in his throat, manages to get a foot between the door and the frame just before she gets it shut, and at any other thing he'd laugh to hear her swear, her blunt expletive as he pushes in, twisting and ducking around her, _avoiding_ her.

(a fragment of a memory, him impossibly young, before he'd understood just how badly his father could hurt him— the way he'd dart around his father, moth to a flame, starved for that attention, craving the contact, and so much later he'd finally learned to control his needs.)

“Tell me it's nothing,” he bursts, and here, this is a plea, quiet and a bit desperate.

“Why would you even contact me like that?” she bites back, and he trails after her as she moves for her kitchen, to the counter, lifts the knife from where she's been working. Mushrooms and asparagus, meat of indeterminable type sitting still wrapped in its paper. “Important conversations are not to be had over open connections, John, the world today listens to everything—”

“Mary,” he urges, and her mouth tightens, line of her shoulders straightening.

He knows what this is, remembers it, can't quite figure out why it's here, how it's come to exist between him and Mary, how he's never noticed it before.

Because this is fear, bitter and debilitating, and it has been unimportant until now.

“I do not work in London,” she says quietly, and he swallows and waits, watches her hands, her arms, the little tells that all people have and that he has mostly learned to ignore.

“We're not involved.”

A pause, a bubble of awkward silence, and she turns her gaze on him, devours him utterly.

“We, John?” She must notice the stiffness of his body, the way he cannot stop watching her, the way he finds himself balanced on his feet to _move_ — “Your 'we,' John, or our 'we'?”

“It has nothing to do with us.”

“Of course not,” she snaps, and sets the knife down, adjusts it once and then twice without looking, impossibly compulsive once her feelings slip her control. “Although I would remind you that his life after his death and prior to his return has nothing to do with you—” A twitch of movement, not feline so much as reptilian as she pins him, dares him. “What do you know of his solitary exodus, John, of his great adventures, of his actions and his decisions?”

“He hasn't told me—”

“You don't want to _know_ ,” she returns too smoothly and he swallows, forces himself to breathe. John falters, fumbles with the uselessness of the words to speak such a plea, and chokes further when she snaps with a startling display of temper— “What? What, John?”

“Not him.” The words spill out of him, a plea becoming a prayer, and her mouth tightens, and he presses on, cannot stop himself now that there is a crack inside him— “Not him, Mary.” Before he thinks he is moving forward, is in her space. “Please not him—”

“I've told you before,” the words are thick, seem to catch on one another, and her eyes are hard but there is a fragility in her tone, in the way she does not push him away, “I told you that I have no interest in the antics of small men, John, that I have no interest in Holmes—”

Because what if, because he cannot survive it— “Not him—”

“Shut up,” and there is enough emotion in her voice to stop him, “stop speaking.”

A simple order, and so he obeys, swallows the words.

Stands too close and listens to the way her breathing fills the space that she still allows him to share, watches the muscles of her arms flex within her blouse and then still, knows that she is deciding not break this fragile moment between them, weighing him against her lies.

When she finally speaks, it is with a resolve any doctor would envy.

“Think, John. Think why he would insist he has no interest on this case, the man that he is, the childish urges he displays even now— he is refusing to entertain the thought of taking this case, isn't he?” He does not ask: _how do you know this?_ “Think, John, you're not so stupid.”

John takes a breath, lets it out.

Listens carefully as Mary says, too softly, “I triggered a civil war when I was nineteen, John, and before I was twenty-one I had ended another. I am a very gifted killer, and governments have fought and auctioned to utilize my skills. The world does not blink when little men die and yet it trembles when the right pressure is applied, when the right man is threatened— but despite being _useful_ to greater men, John, your Sherlock Holmes is still only a little man.”

Hard to breathe but he does, forces air into his lungs, forces it out.

“I told you when we met that I had nothing to do with the games played by insane men,” and the calmness inside her steadies him finally, “and it remains your only truth of me now.”

“That's not when we met,” he reminds her quietly and there, a ghost of a smile.

A curious brightness in her eyes.

“Isn't it?”

This is Mary, this woman with the silent steps and the quiet stare, this woman who becomes so frightfully pleasant (liar) once she becomes a school teacher— and yet is real only now.

The fight goes out of him, fear fracturing into relief, because there is no point.

Because the reality of this woman named Mary Morstan is too big to contemplate, is too dangerous for him to offer a sacrifice to— and here, finally, something almost close to freedom. He has spoken his peace, and she has given her answer, drawn the words from herself and gifted them to him and him only, and despite everything, he cannot help but trust her.

_(he is refusing to entertain the thought of taking this case, isn't he?)_

“Tell me,” he tries, “tell me, I need to know.”

“I am a liar, John, and your professed acceptance of this fact is the only reason I allow you to know very much about me at all.” Mary is annoyed, a startlingly human annoyance, and it quiets him, stills him. “You need sex, hate intimacy but want sex, so we had sex sometimes. You are a physical man despite your inherent distrust— although I would use the term 'fear' despite the years that have passed— of that physicality. But our partnership hinged, John, all of it hinged on your understanding of the very simple truth that I am a liar and that _you_ will be lied to as well.”

“Our partnership,” he repeats, so quietly, and watches her face.

Watches the subtle hesitation that he can find in the depths of her eyes.

“That is the closest... interpretation,” she allows, ever so slowly.

John doesn't know what surprises him more, her saying such a thing or his own astonishment.

And now, finally, he realizes that her arms are crossed a little too stiffly across her middle, that there is an edge of something in the way that she will not let him break her gaze.

Out of her element, uncertain, mildly unsure.

“It is within my best interests, John, to never share my information with you. For the duration of our relationship you have been grateful for this— and I urge you to be grateful now.”

“The gambler—”

“An acquaintance, a man with knowledge I did not possess but now do. Anything that may have happened to said individual after our parting has nothing to do with me, John.”

“You're lying.”

“Are you so sure?”

Yes.

No.

Always, and yet never.

“Go home to your consulting detective, John. Go home and leave me alone and forget these questions you refuse to voice but expect me to answer.” He flinches away, cannot help it, embarrassed, upset by how ugly her truth is. “I have no interest in your Holmes, for better or for worse, I can assure you, and there is more for me than a boy playing detective.” A hint of an awful smile, a smugness only felt by one that has been in too similar a position— “He may be your world, John, but he could never hold my interest for very long.”

“You promised me. Once. You said—”

“I did not lie then.”

 _I do kill people,_ she had admitted then, unruffled by the words and then— _oh no, John, no, I have far more ambition and far more talent than your Moriarty would have known what to do with_.

He remembers her smile, the simplicity of her hard-won pride in her work.

Remembers that those words had first made him follow her, the assurance of her destruction.

Mary is no longer an assurance, no longer a promise.

John thinks of Moriarty's strange obsession, of the stillness of a pulse beneath his fingers, struggles to summon something that feels too close to false bravado— “Stay away from him.”

Mary merely smiles in response, a soft light thing that only seems all the more terrible in the fact that she _dares_ to use it on him, and he turns away, stares vaguely around the dark wood and darker colors of her home. John has always felt that the kitchen itself is more full of life than all the rest of her home put together, says thickly, “but you do love to cook, that's true.”

He's known her at least this well, he must have.

“Of course,” the words assure from behind him, and he thinks of the line of her body in the smoke where he had followed her. “I would never pursue a career in the culinary arts, but I do enjoy it.” He thinks of how much she hates London and yet stays, thinks of his gun at her head, thinks of how she had guided sex between them until he'd been tired and she'd left him to sleep, thinks that he does not know how she sounds when she is asleep. “ _John_.”

“Me,” and yes, yes, he says it despite the fact that he doesn't need to, “if you have to choose, Mary, choose me, choose me and leave him, ”

“That really isn't something you could sway me on one way or another,” she advises him, and the smile in her voice now is her real smile, a cutting smile, a cold thing of hard decisions and harder orders, “so go home and leave me be.”

John has been dismissed, knows it, feels the finality of it, and cannot help but respond.

But John feels no freedom in the lack of choice as he walks too slowly back out of her house, as he hears the click of the lock behind him as he stands on her threshold, as he obeys her order.

 

Sherlock's coat and scarf are hanging when he gets back, but his bedroom door closed.

There is no sound from the closed room when John steps close to the wood and listens, no muffled sound of restless movement, no quiet breathing that he had heard so rarely but always been grateful for (Sherlock sleeps deeply when he does and John had always been able to hear his breathing through the walls, through the distance, through the unfilled space between them) and so he finally turns away, wavers for a moment and then decides.

John sits in his chair until he begins to feel tired, waits until he finally does hear the breathing.

Not as steady as it had always been before, not as deep, and sometimes it stops, catches and then stops, and always there is the rustle of movement just after. The restless sudden motion of a body rolling about between sheets, trying and failing to calm and he knows the sounds well.

The third time he hears Sherlock recover from a nightmare he is (almost) successfully avoiding, John tilts his head back, closes his eyes after one last careful glance at the lock— and sleeps.

(the sheet hangs heavy and still upstairs— John still cannot bear to tear it down)

 

 

* * *

_Next – Mary, before and after, and somewhere in-between.  
_


End file.
